UND still playing short-handed, but should win

North Dakota takes a seven-game winning streak into the West Regional.

The Fighting Sioux, oops that's not their name according to the NCAA, continue to play short-handed with only 18 healthy skaters. So everybody who can skate is in the lineup.

Here are the forward lines:

#29 Brock Nelson -- #10 Corban Knight -- #7 Danny Kristo ... this trio had 50 goals between them, almost 50 percent of UND's total

#16 Mark MacMillan -- #27 Carter Rowney -- #15 Michael Parks ... Rowney has played well in stretch, has 18 goals

#28 Stephane Pattyn -- #9 Mario Lamoureux -- #20 Joe Gleason ... Captain Mario tripled his goal total with two against Gophers

#8 Dan Senkbeil -- #13 Connor Gaarder ... Somebody will double shift when these two go out

#4 Derek Forbort -- #24 Ben Blood ... Forbort has been picking up his scoring lately, Blood is physical, solid defender

#2 Andrew MacWilliam -- #5 Nick Mattson ... MacWilliam is a plus-10 and an assistant captain

#18 Dillon Simpson -- #22 Andrew Panzarella ... they have one goal between them

Goalie

Aaron Dell ... he was the MVP of Final Five

Hard to pick against the Fighting Sioux at the X. They are 8-1 in this building going back two seasons. Coach Dave Hakstol takes them to NCAAs every season. This is their 10th consecutive trip. And Hak is up against a rookie college coach in Andy Murray.

OK, that's a little misleading. Murray has won 333 NHL games on the bench for the Los Angeles Kings and St. Louis Blues. He said coaching college players is not much different from coaching pros.

Western Michigan is on a good roll, beating Miami and Michigan in the CCHA semifinals and final. But the CCHA is off to a bad start in the NCAAs. Both those teams lost Friday as did Michigan State, so the CCHA went 1-3 with only regular-season champion Ferris State advancing with a 2-1 win over Denver.